Jimmy Jack

Jimmy Rollins, who had seen his OBP dip to a woeful .318 in recent weeks, dampened the Shea Stadium faithful's rabid enthusiasm with a 2-strike, 2-out, three-run home run off reliever Aaron Heilman in the seventh inning. It was Jimmy's first long ball since April 27 and his tenth of the season. Mets' fans and members of the New York media have delighted in mocking J-Roll's brazen preseason statement that the Phillies and not the defending NL East Champion Mets were the team to beat in 2007, meanwhile Rollins has accumulated an OPS of 1.139 vs. Mets' pitching.

The Phils were trailing 2-0 at the time of J-Roll's blast and Orlando Hernandez (6 ip, 3 h, 0 r, 4 bb, 3 so) and Adam Eaton (6 ip, 5 h, 2 er, 2 bb, 4 so, and 1Carlos Beltran solo shot) were engaged in an interesting pitching duel. Eaton is now 5-0 at Shea over his career with an ERA near 2.00. After a disastrous outing Friday night vs. the Giants, Eaton's performance was encouraging.

Equally encouraging was the work put in by the beleaguered bullpen, with Geoff Geary managing to pitch out of a second and third no out jam in the bottom of the seventh (coaxing an inning ending double play out of Endy Chavez after intentionally walking Jose Reyes) and Ryan Madson and Antonio Alfonseca working through one-two-three innings. With Brett Myers not expected back before June 18, it was El Pulpo's second consecutive save and the Phillies' second straight 4-2 victory over the division leading Mets.

Cole Hamels takes the mound this evening against John Maine and with the pen working overtime lately, another complete game would be perfect. A sweep of the Mets would put the Phils only five games behind the boys from Queens.